So self-aware! John Mayer reflected on a whole lot in a new interview with Ronan Farrow, which aired on the Today show on Friday, March 6.
The Grammy-winning musician, 37, told Farrow, 27, that he is fully aware of just how polarizing he became at the height of his career — a time when Mayer was dating high-profile women such as Taylor Swift, Jessica Simpson, Jennifer Love Hewitt, and Jennifer Aniston, and raising eyebrows with the boundary-pushing statements he made publicly about his sex life, his views on race and politics, and his own opinion of himself.
“I went, ‘All right, dude, you did a couple interviews where you were out of touch and you were being a ham — and you were basically break dancing into a nitroglycerin plant, right?'” Mayer told Farrow of his missteps. The guitar player added that he realized he was falling slightly from grace the “first time somebody misunderstands you and says you’re a womanizer.”
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Mayer, who was in an on-again, off-again relationship with Katy Perry from late 2012 until early 2014, was then asked by Farrow if he considers himself a womanizer.
“No, absolutely not,” Mayer asserted. “You’re crafty and you’re clever and you go, ‘Well, I’m just going to be as strange as they think I am.’ And then you lose, number one you’re not playing music anymore. Number two, you’re not feeling anything honestly. Number three, you’re not saying anything honestly.”
The “Gravity” performer’s music career did indeed take a bit of a hit in recent years. His 2013 studio album Paradise Valley was his least successful of his six major releases, and his last big charting single, “Half of My Heart” with Swift, hit airwaves way back in 2010.
Looking back at himself as a younger man, Mayer told Farrow that if given the chance to address himself, he’d say, “”That guy’s really, really talented, but I don’t want to be anywhere near him when that thing goes off!’ There was never a shot of doing this perfectly. It was never in the cards.”
“I’m a recovered ego addict,” Mayer added, admitting that he was constantly seeking approval and validation. “The only way that I can be sure that I don’t relapse is to admit that I constantly have this ego addiction — every day. So, I do the Grammys and I go home cause if I stayed, I’d get high again… You’ve already looked through Twitter, everybody goes, ‘It’s great,’ and then you’re low again because you can’t stop looking. So, I’m a recovered ego addict.”
Watch Mayer dish in the video above!
